The Egyptian Hall and the Platform of Transatlantic Exchange: Charles Brown, P.T. Barnum, and Albert Smith

Abstract

Examines the careers of three mid-century performers whose appearances at the Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly offer an alternative account of transatlantic cultural exchange to that developed through legitimate theater. Claims the theater of display, parody, comedy, and fraud they established negotiated the complex cultural and political tensions and borrowings between Britain and America in the period leading to and including the Civil War.